The Mail on Sunday

Stricken NMC may sell private hospitals at huge profit

- By Ben Harrington

A PRIVATE hospital company that aided the NHS during its battle with Covid-19 is set to be sold after the collapse of its former owner earlier this year.

City sources said the administra­tors to NMC Health, which folded amid allegation­s of fraud, have appointed advisers from US firm Perella Weinberg to find a buyer for Aspen Healthcare as part of a break-up of the stricken company.

Gulf-based NMC Health bought Aspen Healthcare i n 2018 for £10 million from Tenet Healthcare as part of its expansion into the UK. It runs eight private hospitals in Britain which have provided support to the NHS during the coronaviru­s pandemic.

NMC Health was set up in 1975 by Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, an Indian pharmacist, who emigrated to t he United Arab Emirates. Initially, the company focused on running private hospitals in the UAE. Shetty floated NMC Health on the London Stock Exchange in 2012. It grew to become one of the world’s largest privately- owned hospitals through a series of mergers and acquisitio­ns, including fertility clinics in Spain.

NMC Health was promoted to the FTSE 100 index in 2017 and grew to have around 20,000 medical staff across almost 20 countries.

However, in April this year NMC Health collapsed into administra­t i on when i t emerged i t had amassed a debt pile of $6.6 billion (£5.2 billion) – far bigger than previously disclosed. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is owed around $1 billion (£800 million) and launched a criminal complaint against several members of the group’s senior management and some shareholde­rs in Abu Dhabi.

Shetty was forced to step down as chairman amid the allegation­s.

The collapse of NMC Health came after Muddy Waters, the US short seller run by Carson Block, issued a critical report on the company and its finances.

Recent reports suggested Alvarez & Marsal, administra­tors to NMC Health, hired Perella Weinberg to run a separate sale of the company’s internatio­nal fertility business which could be worth more than $500 million.

NMC Health acquired a controllin­g stake in Spain-based fertility business Clinica Eugin in 2015 and has IVF operations in several other countries, such as Sweden, Latvia and Colombia.

A spokespers­on for NMC Health and the administra­tors at Alvarez & Marsal declined to comment.

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